For students who underwent industrial training last year, it is time to defend their reports. While some are confident to stand before their lecturers to defend their acquired skills, many have developed cold feet. These students are not happy over the challenges they faced during the training.
For science and engineering students in universities and polytechnics, the Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) is compulsory. The SIWES is a programme designed by the Federal Government for students to gain practical skills of what they are taught.
Part of the scheme’s goals is to provide adequate manpower to foster industrial and economic growth through learning and practice. To sustain the programme, the government established the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) to promote and sustain the acquisition of industrial skills through financial motivation of participants.
Students always look forward to the scheme to which the second semester is devoted by 200-Level and 300-Level students. For final year students, SIWES is held for three months during the first semester, after which the graduating students defend their industrial training skills with their final year project researches.
These days, instead of going for full training in industries, students undergo a minimum of one month and stay at home for the rest of the period. During holidays, students besiege companies in search for where they will undergo the training. The well-connected get places of their choice; many others are frustrated by rejection. Many who could not get placement lose hope and stop applying.
Students are required to write comprehensive reports on what they learnt during the training. The reports must be signed by institution- and industry-based supervisors. On returning to school, they are given a deadline for submission of their log books, which contain the reports. Students become agitated during this period, especially those that did not undergo the training. On various campuses, SIWES defence is seen as judgement day.
To escape the “Armageddon”, many students, who did not participate in the scheme, copy and manipulate reports done by others. Such students often avoid the procedure because they feel they would not score an ‘A’ after the exercise. They manipulate SIWES report and log books by forging reports, signature and designing fake companies’ stamps.
Some frustrated students told CAMPUSLIFE that their inability to get placement on time shortened their SIWES period. “Before my application was considered to undergo my SIWES, I had already spent three months at home doing nothing,” said Timothy Asadu, who did his six-month industrial training in a soap company in Lagos.
Hurried resumption is included in the challenges students complained about. To recover the time lost to strike and other crises that may affect the academic calendar, some institutions hurriedly fixed resumption dates, thereby compelling students to abandon their training for school.
Industry supervision and orientation of participants are part of the responsibilities of the ITF to make the scheme successful. Some trainees have abandoned their training because of non-payment of their allowances by the ITF.
“Many of us have been turned to labourers in companies where we undergo our training. Without giving us kobo, those companies see IT students as extra workforce and stress us beyond the limit. But since the ITF won’t make our allowances available to us during the training, many students stop the SIWES and stay at home,” an engineering student of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) told our correspondent.
It appears the ITF is overwhelmed by the challenges facing the scheme. At the second annual seminar for Trade and Investment Correspondents and Business Editors organised by the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment in Abuja last December, Prof Longmas Wapmuk, ITF boss, said government owed SIWES students N12 billion in allowance. Given the huge debt, Wapmuk said the Fund would rather want the government to scrap the N2,500 stipend approved for students instead of accumulating huge debt.
Wapmuk said the scheme’s idea to marry practical with theory in order to prepare students for employment after graduation is being marred by poor funding.
“Left to us in the ITF, we prefer that we have a cashless SIWES, because students have been taking care of themselves already during the SIWES period and since the Federal Government is not in a position to give us the money required because of the demands from other sectors of the economy, we feel we should have a cashless SIWES so that ITF can pay more attention to supervising the students instead of accumulating debt. There is no need to accumulate debt that we cannot pay because we are not meeting the demand of these students,” he said.
The objectives of SIWES may not be bad after all but the problem of funding may have affected its goals. Some respondents, who spoke to CAMPUSLIFE, urged the government not to allow the scheme die, asking for more funding to motivate students towards acquiring adequate industrial skills.
Obianuju Asouzu, 500-Level Environmental Protection and Resource Management, University of Calabar (UNICAL), urged the government to find means to secure industry placement for prospective SIWES students to curb forgery of companies’ stamps.
Cyril Akpan, 400-Level Environmental Technology, FUTO, said SIWES was a good programme that helped graduates to get jobs easily. “The practical knowledge acquired through the scheme helped some people to get employed after their graduation. If SIWES can be strengthened, I am of the opinion that the unemployment riddle will be solved,” he said.
